Weekly Jobless Claims Drop Ahead of October Jobs Report

iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — Jobless claims fell by 9,000 last week to wrap up the month of October, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.

For the week ending Nov. 2, the number of people filing for benefits dropped to 336,000. Claims for the previous week were revised upward from 340,000 to 345,000.

The four-week average also went down last week, decreasing by 9,250 to 348,250.

On Friday, Americans will get a better picture of how the job market fared in October when the Labor Department releases its monthly employment report at 8:30 a.m. ET. The report will also show any impact the government shutdown may have had on employment.

In September, the unemployment rate dropped to 7.2 percent as U.S. employers added 148,000 jobs to their payrolls — less than what most economists had expected. That report, released more than two weeks late, did not reflect any effects from the shutdown.